Kindle Fire HD 7 forecast: cloudy, with a chance of lag

Our first look at the Kindle Fire HD suggests that not enough has changed.

The home screen of the new Kindle Fire HD: not quite the same as the old Kindle Fire.

Casey Johnston

The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is two days from its ship date, but we've got our hands on one a couple of days early. The whole device seems a bit smoother than its predecessor on the surface, both in terms of physical hardware and software. But even at the outset of our interactions with it, we've seen questionable performance out of the device.

The Fire HD's body is significantly less boxy than the original Kindle Fire, and retains the soft rubberized back. The narrow margins on the long sides of the screen have widened, making it a bit easier to hold, if slightly more cartoonish-looking. Despite the fact that the screen merited a mention in the device's own title, we aren't blown away by the quality. It looks good, but we didn't take particular notice of the level of detail or color.

Like the first Fire, the Fire HD comes pre-loaded with your Amazon account, and offers to connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts during setup. Right off the bat, the sponsored sleep screens confused us: you can swipe in from the left to access the ad, or from the right to unlock and get to your content. Initially we were offered a $5 credit on the left swipe tab and thought it was just part of the setup; not so! Fortunately Amazon backtracked on its moratorium against non-special-offers Fires, so owners will be able to turn this setting off if they like, for a fee.

Navigating the carousel is much smoother, but switching between app tabs like Music, Web, or Videos seems to have gotten even slower. As often as not, a full second elapsed between our tap and the app opening, causing us to wonder whether the tap registered at all. On the bright side, we haven't yet noticed that the Fire HD has any of the did-it-take-or-didn't-it responsiveness problems of the first Fire; everything seems to register, even if it's poky.

We'd noticed earlier that the default search engine for the Fire HD was Bing, but found out that this is customizable in the settings (the other options are Google and Yahoo). There's a setting for whether the home screen's carousel displays your latest browsed page, which is good for those of us with somewhat embarrassing surfing sessions. Curiously, we could also uncheck a box to "accelerate page loading." You know, for those leisurely Sundays. (We kid—this is likely a nod to privacy, as Silk theoretically relies on predictive loading to speed up its performance; this setting may prevent Amazon from collecting and using your data to power Silk).

The browser seems a bit snappier than before, and this may be due to the few million Kindles that now provide Amazon with predictive-load data. We also like the on-screen keyboard much better this time around, as it seems to make fewer mistakes and is more responsive.

As always, you can expect the characteristically exhaustive Ars Technica review in the next few days. Like last time, we reserve the label "tablet" until we've really put the Fire HD through its paces. In the meantime, what questions do you have about the Kindle Fire HD?

32 Reader Comments

Does the latency you've experienced go through to other applications? e.g. if you were to try a relatively high performance application like a game or something, is it slow to respond there, or is it limited to the base UI?

Will the kindle be reviewed as a consumption device against the nook, or as a tablet against the ipad? Or, will it provide anand-esk performance values against a whole range of devices (including the nexus 7)

And any word about the screen, especially in outdoors viewing? Or are you its the same as other devices?

As a parent the biggest thing for me with the Kindle HD is going to be Kindle Freetime. The ability to limit the time spent on games and videos while still allowing the kids to read and browse the web in a killer feature and the primary reason I'll be going with the HD over the Nexus 7 despite the 7 being better hardware with a better app store.

So can anyone think of a single reason why you would take this over a Nexus 7? The Nexus 7 costs basically the same, is faster, can access the Android market, and runs that sweet and tasty Jelly Bean. On top of that, anything the Kindle Fire can run, the Nexus 7 can also run (and then some). Is there ANY reason why someone would buy one of these things over the Nexus 7 other than out of sheer ignorance?

So can anyone think of a single reason why you would take this over a Nexus 7? The Nexus 7 costs basically the same, is faster, can access the Android market, and runs that sweet and tasty Jelly Bean. On top of that, anything the Kindle Fire can run, the Nexus 7 can also run (and then some). Is there ANY reason why someone would buy one of these things over the Nexus 7 other than out of sheer ignorance?

Like I said in my comment, Kindle Freetime. Multiuser support with parental controls.

There's also the HDMI port which could be nice if you don't have a HTPC. Oh, and there's an LTE version including a 250MB/month plan at only $50/year.

They should have used Android 4.1 (instead of 4.0). Thanks to the optimizations that Google says was an effort of their "Project Butter", Android is so much smoother. In fact the Verge said that Android 4.1 is the best OS on the market as of the time of that specific article's publication (and wow, did that anger a lot of Verge readers).

They should have used Android 4.1 (instead of 4.0). Thanks to the optimizations that Google says was an effort of their "Project Butter", Android is so much smoother. In fact the Verge said that Android 4.1 is the best OS on the market as of the time of that specific article's publication (and wow, did that anger a lot of Verge readers).

It is likely that development of the new Fire started before JB was released. So they've had to work on an older base.

I am I the only one who is having trouble getting past the gigantic border / bevel on these things?

The border is there for your fingers to grip the sides. Without it, you unintentionally touch/grip controls on the touch screen. It's more than technically possible to build a screen that goes right to the edge, as can be seen in many laptops today. You just shouldn't.

I am I the only one who is having trouble getting past the gigantic border / bevel on these things?

The border is there for your fingers to grip the sides. Without it, you unintentionally touch/grip controls on the touch screen. It's more than technically possible to build a screen that goes right to the edge, as can be seen in many laptops today. You just shouldn't.

I understand the need for borders. It's just that they seem extra large on this device. Perhaps my scale is off from using full sized tablets all the time. They seem to dwarf the screen.

I am I the only one who is having trouble getting past the gigantic border / bevel on these things?

The border is there for your fingers to grip the sides. Without it, you unintentionally touch/grip controls on the touch screen. It's more than technically possible to build a screen that goes right to the edge, as can be seen in many laptops today. You just shouldn't.

I understand the need for borders. It's just that they seem extra large on this device. Perhaps my scale is off from using full sized tablets all the time. They seem to dwarf the screen.

Note that this is the 7" model, so the bezel will be a larger proportion of the device width compared to an iPad, even if it is in fact a bezel of the same size (not sure of the exact difference in measurements myself though).

I would love to see a review that compares the Kindle Fire HD to the Google Nexus 7. I'm trying to decide between the two myself (leaning towards the Nexus) and find myself torn between the two. Of course, it could just be the newness around the Kindle Fire that's getting me.

For anyone interested about the article's mention of the "accelerate page loading" check box (and the related implications about privacy and the Silk browser), that is not a new check box. The article phrasing makes it sound like this is a new option but it's been there since the original Fire release last year.

That being said, I'm more than a little skeptical about the preview observations in this article based on a similar article that was published around the original Fire release last year. That article (and admittedly others published elsewhere around the same time) blasted the Fire for poor performance across the board and had me seriously considering not buying one as a result. However, in my direct experience now (I've had my Fire since November of last year and added a second one in the household around May of this year), the performance problems noted are wholly unfounded and we have been very happy with the devices. For example, specific mention of problems with the on-screen keyboard and poor touch screen responsiveness have not been evident on our hardware.

I've had the Kindle Fire for about 10 months and remain baffled and puzzled re complaints about the touchscreen sensitivity. In my experience, it is far too sensitive, esp. on the web. Scrolling is frustrating beyond belief because I'm constantly setting of some link or another. Reading e-books can be equally frustrating because of the over-sensitivity of the screen. Pages go forward or backwards practically by breathing on the screen. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but of the Fire's several shortcomings, a touchscreen that is not sensitive enough is not one of them.

One of the biggest flaws in the Fire is its e-reader functionality which trails that of both the Kindle e-readers and even the PC version of the Kindle software, so in your testing of the new HD, I'd like you to compare the e-book support on the HD to that on a Kindle esp. the ability to put books into collections and to buy different dictionaries, esp. foreign-language dictionaries.

I too would love to see a head-to-head with the Google Nexus 7. Having one now, I am getting asked which tablet I would recommend. I don't recommend simply on the basis of specs or apps, I am also interested in content availability (duh! for the Kindle Fire HD ;-), but also ease of use by real people, not just we few.

Against the new(est) iPad would be a plus as well, if possible, but that may have to wait while reviewers catch up.

I am I the only one who is having trouble getting past the gigantic border / bevel on these things?

The border is there for your fingers to grip the sides. Without it, you unintentionally touch/grip controls on the touch screen. It's more than technically possible to build a screen that goes right to the edge, as can be seen in many laptops today. You just shouldn't.

I understand the need for borders. It's just that they seem extra large on this device. Perhaps my scale is off from using full sized tablets all the time. They seem to dwarf the screen.

I tend to have to stop reading and deal with my two toddlers quite a bit. It's pretty easy to accidentally change pages when distracted. I suspect Amazon got a lot of feedback from their eReader type customers and the wide, unattractive border is their response.